Chapter 287: Good deed

The old door had no lock. Sienna saw it the moment they came down the last flight of stairs. It was a low, dark thing of wood and iron, marked with a small cross, and a thick bolt ran across it on the inside. Nobody had wired it. Nobody had even remembered it.

She put her hand on the bolt and pulled.

It did not move.

It was not the bolt. Beyond the door, set into the stone, was a small gray box with a red light.

"No," she whispered. Her hand slid off the iron. Her knees went weak, and she slid down the wall to the floor. The tablet was still in her fingers. Behind her, Viktor stopped and turned, with Elena trembling at his shoulder.

"Sienna?"

"Give me thirty seconds."

She pulled the tablet into her lap. The screen was red. Her eyes tried to slide off it, and she dug her nails into her palm and made them stay. Her heart was pounding in her ears like a fist on a door.

The screen flickered. A line of text ran across it, and a small gray window opened. Administrator session not found. The previous session ended. She stared at it. Ended.

She did not stop to wonder. Her fingers flew. She typed, and the window changed, and a long list of green lines began to scroll down the screen. She was inside. She pressed one key.

Along the walls of the house, one after another, the red lights turned green. In front of her, the little gray box beside the door gave a soft click. "I did it," she said. Her voice cracked. "It’s open."

Viktor pulled the bolt, and the door swung back.

Cold air came in. It smelled of wet grass and night. A narrow path ran off between two walls, and beyond it was a dark garden with a few small lights.

They went out. Viktor first, with the silenced pistol up. Sienna after him, with Viktor’s jacket hanging off her shoulders. Elena came last, small and gray, her eyes fixed on the ground as if she were afraid to look at the sky. Nobody spoke. The night was very quiet. Far away, a dog was barking. Viktor thought.

He moved along the wall, one hand on the stone, keeping Sienna a pace behind him. The path bent right. The garden opened out. He could see the weak spot ahead, the low wall they had marked in the afternoon, black against the sky.

Then he saw the glint of metal. "Down!" He threw himself sideways and dragged Sienna with him. The wall behind them exploded in a spray of stone. A shot cracked from the dark, then another, then a whole line of them, flat and sharp, from the left and the right.

Elena screamed. It was an ambush.

Kalisto’s men had been waiting outside, in the dark between the cameras, where nobody could see them. They had hidden among the hedges and the garden statues and the low stone walls, dressed in black. They had been told to kill any of the Don’s men who came out through the doors.

They had not expected to see Viktor. But they knew his face. They shifted their aim, and the bullets came down like rain.

Viktor pushed Sienna flat against the wall and covered her body with his own. He lifted the pistol over his shoulder and fired blind, three times, four, five. The silencer gave a soft cough each time. Somebody grunted, and a dark shape fell near the hedge.

Then the pistol clicked. He pulled the trigger again. It clicked again. Empty. He had known it was coming. He had counted. It had only ever held a few bullets, and he had used most of them in a stone hallway. He held it for one more second, as if it might change its mind, then he dropped it in the grass.

"Viktor," Sienna said.

"I know."

"We have nothing."

"I will get us out of here like I promised." He pulled her tighter. They crouched behind the low wall with Elena huddled against the stones beside them, hands over her head. Bullets whined over them and chipped the top of the wall into dust. A piece of stone struck his cheek and drew blood. He did not feel it.

He held Sienna to his chest with one arm and put the other over the back of her head. Not like this, he thought. Not after everything.

His heart was pounding. He was the best fighter there ever was, has killed without flinching and yet he was going to die in a garden, behind a wall, with no bullets, because he had too few men.

He had never fought a battle so hard or so deadly. He had never had so little to fight it with.

"Down!" A new voice cut through the shooting. It was high and clear. A woman’s voice, with ice in it. Viktor turned his head and saw a small figure in silver-white come sprinting out of the doorway they had just left, with a pistol in her hand.

Carina.

She did not duck. She did not slow. She ran straight into the garden with her dress flying around her legs, and she dropped to one knee behind a stone urn and opened fire.

She shot well. Every shot found its mark. A man by the hedge spun and fell. Another, near the statue, grabbed his shoulder and went down with a curse. She fired steadily, three, four, five, her arms straight and her breath even, and the line of fire shifted to her.

The urn cracked. Carina twisted. She did not cry out. She only made a small, sharp sound, like someone pricked by a pin, and her gun hand jerked and then dropped to her side. She slid down against the urn with her other hand clamped over her shoulder.

Red was already seeping between her fingers. "No," Sienna breathed. She tried to rise. Viktor held her down. "Stay."

"She is hurt."

"Stay down." Then, from far away beyond the wall, came a new sound. It came fast, from the direction of the gate. Men poured out.

They were big, rough men in black jackets, and they carried guns with the easy swing of people who had used them often. They did not shout. They did not wait for orders. They spread out along the wall in a line, fast and clean, and the night lit up with muzzle flashes.

A tall man ran at their head, a gun in each hand.

"Boss!" he roared. "Boss, where are you?" Marcus. Viktor’s breath left him in a rush. He had never been so glad to hear a voice in his life.

"Here!"

The Gallon boys swept the garden. They were not gentle. They drove Kalisto’s men back from the hedge, and over the statue, and into the dark. Shots cracked and men yelled. In less than a minute, the fire thinned out, and then it stopped altogether.

A heavy quiet fell, broken only by somebody groaning in the grass. Marcus came crashing through the bushes.

He dropped to one knee beside the wall and looked Viktor over from top to bottom with quick, worried eyes. He saw the blood on his cheek, and the torn shirt, and the girl in the oversized jacket tucked under his arm.

"Are you alright, Boss?"

"Yes." Viktor’s voice was hoarse. He let go of Sienna and pulled himself up. "Let’s go."

"The van is ready."

"Then move." He turned to help Sienna to her feet. She had already risen. Her face was gray, and she swayed, but she did not look at him. She was looking across the garden at a small figure slumped against a broken urn.

"Carina," she said.

She pulled free of his arm and went to her. She stumbled over the grass and fell on her knees at the girl’s side. Carina’s face was pale. Her lips were tight and colorless. Her silver-white dress was dark all along her shoulder, and her hand was clamped over it.

"Let me see," Sienna said. She reached for the dress. A cold hand closed around hers. "No."

Carina’s fingers were slick and shaking. She held Sienna’s hand tight and pulled it away from her arm.

"Do not worry about me."

"You are bleeding."

"It is not deep." It was a lie, and they both knew it. Carina gave a thin smile. "I will live. I have lived through worse. Go."

"I can help you. I can stop it..."

"Sienna." It was the first time she had ever said her name.

"I will send the guards away," Carina said. "I will call them all inside. Every man in the house. Tell them we need backup." Her breath hitched. "While they run to me, you will go. The gate will be open. Nobody will stop you."

Sienna’s eyes filled.

She looked at the girl who had stood by the Don for so many years. The girl who had worn white and kept her eyes low and said nothing, and had turned out to be the only person in that house who ever had a spine. She looked at the blood. She did not want to leave.

Viktor put a hand on her shoulder. "She is right," he said gently. "We have to go." He met Carina’s eyes over Sienna’s head. She gave him the smallest of nods. He gave one back.

Sienna looked at her for one more long moment. Her eyes were wet. They were full of thanks, and sorrow, and something else that did not have a name. She squeezed Carina’s hand.

Then she let go, and she stood up.